Vehicles may be fitted with evaporative emission control systems to reduce the release of fuel vapors to the atmosphere. For example, vaporized hydrocarbons (HCs) from a fuel tank may be stored in a fuel vapor canister packed with an adsorbent which adsorbs the vapors. At a later time, when the engine is in operation, the evaporative emission control system allows the vapors to be purged into the engine intake manifold for use as fuel.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,237,574 describes an evaporative emission canister that allows for adsorption of fuel vapors. The system includes more than one hydrocarbon adsorbing zone to buffer fuel vapor flowing through the canister.
The inventors herein have recognized various issues with the above system. In particular, adding hydrocarbon adsorbing zones increases the size of the evaporative emission canister. For example, in order to appropriately buffer fuel vapor, varying adsorbing zones are positioned in a cascading order, which contributes to increasing the length of an evaporative emission canister and thus the size of the canister shell. Increasing the size of the canister shell is superfluous for vehicles and/or fuel types that produce smaller hydrocarbon loads. Thus, evaporative emissions canisters are designed for each fuel delivery system, and necessitate different canister components to accommodate each vehicle. For example, the system of U.S. Pat. No. 6,237,574 would need a different sized canister shell to accommodate the varying number of adsorbing zones in order to accommodate different vehicle applications.
As such, one example approach to address the above issues is to provide a fuel vapor canister with a common canister shell capable of accommodating varying amounts of adsorptive material and/or providing various internal volumes. Further, the fuel vapor canister may include other common components including an end cap configured to couple with the common shell in different orientations. In this way, it is possible to accommodate different volumes of adsorptive material for different vehicle applications, and thus different hydrocarbon loads, while utilizing the same components across the different vehicle applications. In one embodiment, a shell of the fuel vapor canister may be coupled to an end cap in a first orientation to accommodate a first volume, or the end cap may be inverted and coupled to the same shell to accommodate a second, different volume. Further, by taking advantage of utilizing the same components, manufacturing costs may be reduced as the same fuel vapor canister components may be implemented for different vehicles even though the vehicles may have different fuel delivery systems.
Note that the fuel vapor canister may include other components such as a retention system including compression plates and/or springs which may be utilized to achieve other volumes of adsorptive material within the common shell. In this way, the fuel vapor canister may have increased versatility and as such may be applied to varying different vehicle applications. As such, manufacturing costs may be reduced and vehicle assembly may be simplified.
It should be understood that the summary above is provided to introduce in simplified form a selection of concepts that are further described in the detailed description. It is not meant to identify key or essential features of the claimed subject matter, the scope of which is defined uniquely by the claims that follow the detailed description. Furthermore, the claimed subject matter is not limited to implementations that solve any disadvantages noted above or in any part of this disclosure.